[ad_1]
Ukraine made a renewed push this weekend at a gathering in Saudi Arabia to win the support of dozens of countries that have remained on the sidelines of the war — the start of a broader campaign in the months ahead to build the diplomatic muscle to isolate and weaken Russia.
Ukraine and Saudi Arabia invited diplomats from some 40 governments to talks in the Red Sea port of Jeddah on Saturday. In addition to the United States and European countries, notable attendees included China, India, Brazil, South Africa and some of the oil-rich Gulf nations that have tried to maintain good relations with both Ukraine and Russia throughout the war, which began in February 2022.
Many of the countries that have declared their neutrality appear unlikely to shift their stances, though, and some reject the very concept of choosing sides, framing the war as a contest between superpowers that they want no part in.
“This is not only a conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” Celso Amorim, international affairs adviser to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil, said in a speech that he delivered virtually during the talks. “This is also a chapter in the longstanding rivalry between Russia and the West,” he said, according to a copy of the speech obtained by The New York Times.
The gathering was closed to media, which a Saudi state television correspondent broadcasting from outside the venue attributed to the talks’ “sensitivity.” It underscored the tightrope that Saudi Arabia and many other countries are trying to walk to avoid alienating Moscow — and the challenges that Ukraine will face as it tries to win them over.
The meeting is the starting point of what is expected to be a major Ukrainian diplomatic push in the coming months to try to undercut Russia. That began on Wednesday, when President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine recalled his ambassadors for an emergency strategy session on how to get the country’s message out to the world.
He told the ambassadors they must use every tool at their disposal — “official and unofficial, institutional and media, cultural diplomacy and the power of ordinary human sincerity” — to convince both steadfast allies and nations that have largely stayed neutral that the only road to a lasting peace is complete Russian defeat.
The annual United Nations General Assembly session in September will offer another opportunity for Ukraine to make its case. And the country is also planning a summit later in the fall to shore up backing for its 10-point peace formula in the hopes that it will form the backbone of any future settlement.
Ukrainian and Western officials tried to temper expectations for the talks this weekend, stressing that they are not likely to bring the war any closer to an end; Russia is not participating.
For Ukraine, the gathering comes at a pivotal moment.
As furious battles raged across the front lines of Europe’s bloodiest war in decades, Mr. Zelensky told his diplomats on Wednesday that things would grow even more difficult as pressure was likely to build in the coming months to find a negotiated path to peace.
The choice of Saudi Arabia as host was no accident, senior Ukrainian officials said, noting the efforts that Kyiv has made to court the kingdom, the world’s largest oil exporter. Like many countries in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has toed a careful line in the war, giving financial aid to Ukraine even while cultivating close ties to Russia.
Last year, the kingdom irritated the White House with a decision to cut oil production in coordination with OPEC Plus — an energy exporters’ group in which Russia is a key member. The production cut helped stave off a decline in oil prices at a time when the United States was trying to undercut Russian oil revenue.
China has also declared its neutrality, despite providing Russia with vital support that has helped cushion the effects of economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation. Yet after shunning a similar gathering in June in Copenhagen, China attended the Saudi meeting, which may reflect its deepening ties with the host country.
Alicja Bachulska, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who studies Chinese foreign policy, said that China’s participation does not mean it is changing its position on the war. But it could help burnish a carefully cultivated effort to look like a responsible and neutral actor, she said.
“Simply put,” Ms. Bachulska said, “it seems like a win-win scenario for Beijing.”
India, which sent its powerful national security adviser, Ajit Doval, to the talks, often cites its long history of nonalignment to explain its neutral position in the war today.
But like many of the nations attending, India has also benefited from that stance. By maintaining its trade links with Russia, some of its biggest companies have profited handsomely from the purchase, refining and resale of Russian oil, reducing pressure on the rupee.
“We have accepted the refrain that Ukraine’s narrative has won over Russia, but that is mainly true in the liberal free world,” said Anna Borshchevskaya, a scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who focuses on Russia in the Middle East. “Outside it, the Russian narrative resonates.”
For Saudi Arabia, which has long served as a mediator in regional conflicts, the gathering in Jeddah is notable because the kingdom is involving itself prominently in a crisis of the highest global priority.
The de facto Saudi ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, invited Mr. Zelensky to speak in May in Jeddah at a gathering of Arab states, where the Ukrainian leader urged Middle Eastern rulers to stand with his country against Russia.
For Prince Mohammed, 38, the talks offered another chance to try to position himself as a world leader with influence far beyond his region and as a mediator who can bring powerful nations to the table, even as he struggles to end his own country’s involvement in a devastating war in Yemen.
“Hosting the Ukraine peace talks gives us a taste of Saudi Arabia’s reinvigorated self,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University.
Ukraine faces a dual challenge as it embarks on its diplomatic push.
It needs to keep the support of Western allies firm as it engages in a grueling, bloody and costly counteroffensive that, over the past two months, has yielded some gains but has yet to achieve a major breakthrough. But it also needs to broaden that support by pulling in other countries that have remained noncommittal.
That will not be easy, partly because Ukraine and its Western backers are engaged in an intense struggle with Russia to win them over.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia recently hosted a group of African leaders in his country, offering to provide free grain supplies for a half-dozen African nations. Russia has blockaded Ukrainian grain — which accounted for 10 percent of the global supply before the war — and critics have accused Moscow of using hunger as both a weapon and means to bankroll the war.
Saudi Arabia must tread carefully as it wades into Ukrainian diplomacy, analysts said. While Russia and Saudi Arabia have long acted in accord on key oil-related issues in ways that were mutually beneficial, there are signs that their longstanding relationship might be under strain, as Russia appears to have pumped more oil recently than it had pledged to.
It is precisely those kinds of fissures — whether economic, cultural or political — that Ukrainian and Western officials hope to exploit to their advantage.
The No. 1 priority, Mr. Zelensky told his diplomats, was to make the world understand that any end to the war that leaves Russia in control of vast portions of Ukraine would serve only as a prelude to more violence.
“The power of our warriors at the front is largely a consequence of the power of our agreements with our friends and partners,” Mr. Zelensky said.
Michael Crowley contributed reporting from Washington, Paulo Motoryn from Brasília and Alex Travelli from Delhi.
[ad_2]
Source link
